A Drabble Series
by Madrigal
Summary: When complete, this work in progress will be a series of 100 drabbles, exactly 100 words each, based on the Susan Kay Phantom novel.
1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:** What follows is (or will be, when complete) a series of 100 Phantom of the Opera drabbles, written for the LiveJournal Fanfiction100 Challenge and archived here at beginning July 2006. The gist of the challenge is: write 100 fics, each one inspired by a set prompt. The prompt will be noted at the beginning of each fic.

For this challenge I had to choose specific characters from a specific incarnation of Phantom to write about, and so I chose Erik and Christine from the novel Phantom by Susan Kay. I prefer this adaptation to all others because of the depth of backstory Kay has given to Erik, and because of the believability of his relationship with Christine. I am also very fond of Kay's original character Nadir Khan, Daroga of Mazanderan, and he will probably make frequent appearances in my fics.

As to why I've decided to write about Erik and Christine ... what, that's not entirely obvious?

In general, my fics will take place in an alternate Kay universe, in which Erik did not die at the conclusion of the novel and Christine never married Raoul.

I will try not to let too much Andrew Lloyd Webber slip into these fics, though my preferred fic style does blend Kay, Webber and Leroux. ("Gaston Leroux gave Erik life. Susan Kay gave him a soul. ALW gave him a voice. Do you see why I can't choose?" - from the amazing Wikipedia article about the novel)

I have also decided to do all my fics for this challenge in strict drabble form, 100 words precisely. I like the way this form forces you to select words carefully, and the almost-poetic results it produces. Due to the length of each fic, and to work within format, I will be archiving all 100 as one fic, each in a separate "chapter."

Comments/ criticism/ general foolishness in response to any/ all of my fics is welcome. If you are an LJ user, you can also follow my progress there - the community is called fanfic100.

Heather

**Title:** Beginnings  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera (Kay)  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Beginnings  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G  
**Author's Notes:** The aftermath of a different decision. (AU)

It is a strange new world this morning, and so only fitting they should take their flight as dawn's pink has just begun to flood the streets of Paris.

Erik is beginning to remember the touch of fresh air on his bare cheek.

Christine is beginning to learn that Erik's cold fingers warm quickly when they hold her own small hand.

They are both dimly aware that this is folly - who could have dreamed this journey? What kind of life will they lead?

And yet - even these fears have some intoxicating newness as they step out into the intensifying light.


	2. Middles

**Title:** Middles  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Middles  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

It was mid-afternoon when Christine flew through her dressing-room door and gave it a peevish slam. "Horrid, _stupid_ Carlotta!" she stormed, kicking the ornate wood crossly. "She wouldn't know a note of _real_ music if it pierced her through her wretched heart!"

As if in response, a flash of red caught Christine's eye. A bouquet lay in the middle of the floor - but these were dismissed almost out-of-hand as she pounced in search of the note.

Something - a note of real music, perhaps? - trembled in her middle as she read the words in Erik's bold hand -

"Christine - I love you."


	3. Ends

**Title:** Ends  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Ends  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** PG

Erik had pored over his copy of Machiavelli's _Il Principe_ for weeks, like a zealot seeking absolution for a crime he had not yet committed.

If it was true that the ends justify the means, then he should feel no twinge of guilt for his part in the bedlam ensuing above - the smoke, the ruin, the screams of the dying and the terrified.

But Christine lay crumpled and weeping in the prow of the boat, and the sound echoed weirdly through the cavern, reverberating off the still surface of the subterranean lake.

This was not the end he had envisioned.


	4. Insides

**Title:** Insides  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Insides  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

When Christine is in Erik's study, sometimes she forgets she isn't back beneath the Opera.

At first the idea of shutting oneself in a cellar might seem strange to anyone. But Erik's house was not a cellar, not really - it was safety. The world above was gawking and cruel; inside was private, quiet, peace.

Now, in their modest home, he had made that peace in this room with his familiar things, a roaring fire and heavy draperies. It reminded her of his house beyond the lake - but it was not that house he loved.

It was peace - and her.


	5. Outsides

**Title:** Outsides  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Outsides  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

Even Erik is surprised at how comfortable he has come to be outside.

The new mask - a pale kid leather, far closer to the tone of natural skin - has helped. Passersby catching a glimpse of his face now have little to attract their attention, though he still prefers to wear his hat brim pulled low over his brow.

Perhaps it also helps that, nearly everywhere he goes now, he cradles Christine's hand like a talisman. Even curious glances no longer trouble him - he wears her love like armor.

Yes, he must confess - he loves to love his wife by daylight.


	6. Hours

**Title:** Hours  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Hours  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

Erik has always loved clocks - their mechanisms appeal to his scientific nature. Christine has long ago given up her efforts to stop him bringing home yet another broken clock from yet another market stall; she knows it comes from his inability to resist the few things he _can_ repair.

She finds it funny that their house can be so full of clocks, and yet that so many of their hours can slip away so wholly unnoticed. When he seats himself at their piano and entreats her with his eyes to join him, they sing to some metronome other than Time's.


	7. Days

**Title:** Days  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Days  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

Christine lurched to the railing and stared dismally into the churning sea. It had been days since their sailing and she had spent them all piteously, piteously ill.

A gentle hand brushed her shoulder, drew a windswept curl back from her clammy cheek. She sighed and leaned into her husband, drawing some comfort from the strong warmth of his chest against her back.

"You're so beautiful," Erik's mellifluous voice whispered in her ear.

She laughed despite herself. "Am I? Even seasick and green?"

"On our way to a New World, a new life - you would be beautiful in any shade."


	8. Weeks

**Title:** Weeks  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Weeks  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

Nadir woke to the faint scrape of boots on his balcony. He sprang from bed with surprising swiftness and threw the door wide.

Erik's mask was spectral, luminous in the darkness. "Daroga - your manners are somewhat abrupt this evening."

"Damnation, Erik - it's been weeks since I've seen you. What can you mean by climbing my walls at this hour?"

"I admit, I have been indulging my taste for the dramatic. I've come to say goodbye."

"Goodbye? Erik -"

"Much has happened in those weeks, Nadir - but don't fret. Christine and I will invite you to visit, once we're settled."


	9. Months

**Title:** Months  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Months  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** PG for allusion  
**Author's Notes:** Thanks to AWM.

The thing Christine likes best about the Opera season these days is that it will end soon.

Though the hustle and press of the season is exhilarating in its dazzling way, she cannot help but dream away her rehearsals now, thinking of how she and Erik will spend the months of Off-Season.

The theatre, empty of its usual everyday inhabitants, will be theirs alone - they will sing their passions across the empty auditorium, run merry chases through the abandoned costumes and scenery ...

And what she means to do to him in each and every box along the tier ...!


	10. Years

**Title:** Years  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Years  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G  
**Author's Notes:** Tweaked from a previously-written piece archived here at (see my profile for a link to "Angel of Healing")

There had never been anything more rewarding than Christine's new work. The Great War had killed thousands, left hundreds more disfigured ... Erik's face was handsome now, by comparison to those of the men she'd nursed in the years since surrendering her childish fantasies of fame.

"Thank you," she whispered into his shoulder one evening.

"For making dinner?" he smiled, maskless.

"For the chance to care for you."

He sobered. "I am not one of your patients, Christine."

"No," she replied, just as serious. "I am yours ... You healed me of my former selfishness, and lifted me towards love."


	11. Red

**Title:** Red  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Red  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

It was nearly noon when Christine woke to find herself alone.

Erik often rose early these days, spent his morning touring his building sites, returned in time for lunch with some treat for her from the _patisserie_.

In the front hall she paused, noticed the inky spill of his cloak left hanging on its hook. It must be warm today ...

She caressed the fine cashmere, the slick red satin lining - succumbed to temptation, slipped into its folds ...

... Started as the door opened.

Blinded momentarily by the midday light, she heard rather than saw his fond smile. "_Madame le Phantom_."


	12. Orange

**Title:** Orange  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Orange  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** PG

Venice, Christine was forced to admit, was as romantic as she'd ever imagined.

The perfection of renaissance architecture, the smells emanating from market stalls, the echoing song of the gondoliers made the city a patchwork of vivid impressions, sensations layering on sensations to form combinations of taste, sound, touch that were unlikely, awe-inspiring.

Like the sight of Erik beside her in the noon sun - his arm light and gentle on her waist in the pressing crowds - his shadow descending around her in the orange sunset, on their balcony overlooking the canals, like the softness of dusk and warm, bare skin.


	13. Yellow

**Title:** Yellow  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Yellow  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** PG

Erik stood in the doorway and marveled, as always, at the sight of Christine in his study.

She often complained he had chosen the room with the best light, and it was not unusual for him to return home from an outing to find her there, heavy drapes thrown wide, her easel and brushes arranged beside one of the full-length windows.

He admired her use of color - in her landscapes, and in the bright splash of her yellow dress against the usual darkness of his room.

She was a brave sunbeam, stubbornly invading the shadows of his sullen sanctuary.


	14. Green

**Title:** Green  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Green  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

He wanted to touch her.

He admitted this freely, if only to himself - he wanted her as much as any other precious thing ever denied him.

But despite the wanting, despite the means and opportunity in their music lessons, he could not. Every time she turned to him with that bewildered expression of hers, he saw only the wide, pleading eyes of the little odalisque - the vivid emerald eyes heavily lined with kohl and filled with desperate tears.

He would not take from her anything that was not freely given. He had not in Persia and he would not now.


	15. Blue

**Title:** Blue  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Blue  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G  
**Author's Notes:** _"The blue eyes, half closed with pleasure, seemed to regard me with the superiority of unquestioned possession, as though suddenly she understood that she had nothing to fear from me ... I could not hope to take him from her. I did not dare!"_

Ayesha is not fooled by this development. She knows she alone is his Beloved.

After all, who wears his fortune in ill-gotten diamonds?

Still, she is troubled by the amount of time Erik spends these days catering to the interloper. Ayesha will not be deposed.

She believes it only a matter of time before she is restored to her throne - until the moment she spies the glint of a diamond on the wretch's finger!

Christine catches only a flash of ice-blue eyes in the shadows before the cat leaps to do battle - to die, if necessary! - for Erik's love.


	16. Purple

**Title:** Purple  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Purple  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

Christine poured the tea and smiled at their guest. The older woman returned the smile nervously but accepted the proffered teacup with the nicest of manners.

Erik could not help some small satisfaction at this classic exchange. Marie Perrault's perpetual nervousness was as essential to her as her carroty hair; it was somehow comforting to see it, unaltered even after so many years.

He also drew some satisfaction from her pale purple gown, but this was satisfaction of a pettier sort. He had chosen it, knowing it was the only color that would not clash dreadfully with that unfortunate hair.


	17. Brown

**Title:** Brown  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Brown  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

While once he had surrounded himself with the shifting greys of shadow, Erik must admit that he infinitely prefers brown.

(To the ignorant it might seem an unglamorous color, but he knows it far more intimately than most.)

By daylight, for instance, it comes alive with shimmering chestnut and bronze; and by firelight it draws him with the enticing hues of cinnamon and toffee, its secretive mahogany flecked with audacious gold.

When she laughs and calls it mousy, he feigns a poet's wounded fanaticism; he will never tire, he promises, of finding new melodious adjectives to describe those bewitching tresses.


	18. Black

**Title:** Black  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** Black  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** G

Out of sheer spite, Christine has insisted that Erik's new chess-set have no black pieces.

She has grown so tired of watching and listening as Erik and Nadir debate, waging their timeless battle of Heaven versus Hell at the small table beside the fire. She knows now that it has never been, nor will it ever be, that simple.

The gift, which she has specially commissioned, is therefore somewhat selfish as well. The jade and amber pieces are indisputably beautiful - and morally neutral.

She looks forward to seeing the playing field thus leveled. She is weary of the Daroga's sermonizing.


	19. White

**Title:** White  
**Fandom:** Phantom of the Opera  
**Characters:** Christine/ Erik  
**Prompt:** White  
**Word Count:** 100  
**Rating:** PG

For a moment in his horror, it is not red Erik sees but white.

This is not how it was supposed to be - Christine's wedding gown smudged with dust from all her crawling on his carpet, the perfect white satin befouled with blood from the gash in her forehead. Her pale face, framed by the mad riot of her tangled hair, seems to melt into itself as she weeps.

Like all things of his creation, she is somehow wrong - his notions of beauty turned grotesque.

He is a monster himself, after all - why should he not have a monstrous bride?


End file.
